Sharing our thoughts on the world of today's media.

How do you ensure your customers are having the most positive customer experience plausible?

Is it possible the value of your marketing and advertising results, or lack thereof, is in direct relationship with how your customers interact with your brand and how your customers are treated once they enter the door?

Imagine you have a great marketing strategy, and customers are coming into your storefront, but the sales numbers are still not hitting your desired mark. What would your next step be? Yes, we could throw some more money into marketing and advertising, and it may increase traffic for a short while. However, 9 times out of 10, when the sales aren’t converting, despite strong marketing efforts, it may be time to look internally at the quality of the customer experience.

There are dozens of tools on the market nowadays to assess website analytics, listen to incoming calls, and to help identify where a breakdown may be happening. Do you know how your customer service representatives are answering the phone? Is your website getting traffic but you’re still not seeing any online transactions? Lastly, how are you responding to requests for refunds, returns, or exchanges? You may find it valuable to audit your incoming calls and do some coaching with your reps on how to better convert phone calls into sales. There’s also a chance customers don’t understand how to add items to their cart online or can’t find the product they are looking for on your website. Customers should be able to easily get in touch with your business for any issues related to their purchases, or they will be less likely to purchase from you again.

Some other things to consider: are your employees on the sales floor warmly greeting each person who walks in the door and answering their questions? Do you find value in ensuring the store is clean and tidy and easy to navigate? If you have social media, is your business responding to incoming comments, messages, and requests for information?

Additionally, do your customers feel valuable when they make a purchase? You may find value in customer appreciation efforts. A hand-written thank you note for buying a pair of glasses from your eye clinic, or a personal phone call for ordering a customized item online can let customers know their specific transaction was valuable. Even simpler, an automated ‘Thank You’ email after a purchase could do the trick, too.

Issues with revenue may sometimes be attributed to external factors or lack of attention to marketing. However, no amount of money invested in radio, print, and tv ads can convert a poor customer experience into sales for your business.

Authenticity.

In a culture curated by filters and seemingly flawless images, what does it mean to be authentic? Is it valuable to you for customers to see your brand as authentic? The way the consumer perceives your brand will ultimately determine whether they become your customer or not. Here are some things to consider when thinking about authenticity.

1. Can your customers see the vision behind your brand?
Your target audience may be broad, or it may be specific. Either way, this group of people has a set of values and standards and will make purchases from brands which align with those values. Do your promotional materials, website, social media and customer service convey those core values? It needs to be obvious you are a business who prides itself on its quality assurance and customer satisfaction, always.

2. Is your brand approachable?
As a kid, we would write letters to the President and our favorite celebrities in hopes to get a response and feel ‘seen’ by them. While you may not be the President, interacting with your customer base on social media is a great way to connect with the people who directly support you. Consider a personal response to a ‘fan’ (read: customer) to show there’s some humanity behind your brand name. It’s also great publicity and branding if your message or tweet back to a customer is shared!

Can customers easily reach a representative on the phone or do they receive an automated machine? If customers feel a company is too big or too busy to care about them personally, they may also feel as if their purchases don’t matter either. Authenticity can be created by simply having a customer service representative available to personally answer phone calls.

3. Is your brand respected?
Are you seen in the community as a name people can stand behind? Is it possible there’s a charity, school, or organization within your community you could support? It’s worth considering community service projects to get you and your staff involved in giving back. This, of course, needs to be genuine, but the kindness will ultimately tie compassion and generosity to your brand.
Oftentimes we think we are completely authentic by owning up to faults or adding a ‘Meet the Team’ page to your website. While these are great strategies and are recommended, there’s added value in going the extra distance. Authenticity creates depth and personality to your brand, and results in higher customer retention rates, brand engagement, and at the end of the day increases your bottom line. What is your brand doing to become more authentic?

What’s the next big thing?

Ever since the age of smartphones began, photo and video have taken the digital advertising space by storm. Within the past 5 years, we have seen Instagram, Vine, and Snapchat rise in popularity, and with the exception of Vine, the visual platforms are thriving. But how important is video marketing to your business? Well, let’s look at the stats.

According to Social Media Today, Facebook produces an average of 8 billion video views a day.

Popular marketing tool Hubspot says 64% of internet users are more likely to buy a product online after watching a video.

The statistics go on and on.

Do you know how to best utilize video? Video Brewery says that 20% of viewers will click away within 10 seconds of the video starting. Just like an attention getter in an essay or novel, the beginning of your video needs to convince the consumer to keep watching. Videos need to connect with the audience it is being targeted to. With today’s technology, the cost of creating a video has decreased dramatically and it doesn’t take much to get started.

Now that Instagram and Facebook have launched ‘live’ features, you can captivate your customer base by simply having a smartphone with a camera. Recent iPhone video quality is high enough, where by the quick press of ‘record’ you can provide current and potential customers a tour of your location, a how-to video on how to use one of your products, insider tips and tricks, or a live question and answer session. Any of these ideas can be done in-house without any sort of professional equipment. And, it keeps your social media followers engaged and interested in what’s new around your business.

As you look down the road to what the future holds for your business’ marketing strategy, video advertising certainly should be on the list of things to consider. For now, at the very least, it should start the conversation about how you and your business will be a part of this next generation of advertising.

What are your customers searching?

“Brunch restaurants nearby”

“Breakfast food near me”

“Where’s the best brunch in Portland?”

Nowadays, search engines seem to solve all life’s hardest questions. And, if your business has a website, you obviously want your website to land at the top of the first page when a potential customer searches for what you do. But oftentimes, business owners don’t fully understand search engine optimization or how to improve their rankings to give them the best chance to be on the first page.

Statistics show that internet users search more than 3.5 billion queries every day. For your website to be the top results, a combination of attributes need to be in your favor. Everything from page headings, loading speed, mobile optimization, html codes, and many other factors play a part in how soon a consumer will see your brand’s website in their search results. Because of this, it’s important to fully understand how best to create your website and enhance your content for optimal results, or have someone on your team who does.

Another way to improve your search ranking is to have customer reviews. A recent survey reported that 73% of consumers trust a local business more when they have positive reviews. Also, a consumer will read a minimum of 7 reviews before they trust a business. So, the more Yelp, Facebook, and Google reviews you have, the more relevant your business becomes to the specific search. You will increase your chances on being on the first page simply for having more reviews.

An example of the significance of reviews could be making a purchase on Amazon. The average consumer is more likely to buy a new bike from a business with 70 positive reviews than a business with 1 or 2 reviews total. Reviews provide credibility and depth to a business. Finding an effective way to promote your customers to leave good feedback on line is an important part of business today.

The next time you’re doing a Google search, notice what factors you consider when selecting a search result for a local business. Understanding how you (or others you know,) search and make “buying decisions” is important in understanding the importance of getting to the first page on the search engines.

Our Team’s Perspective

Have you ever completed a puzzle? The feeling of snapping the last piece in place is a sigh of relief. But imagine getting down to the last couple pieces, and realizing they were lost along the way? That is exactly how it sounds to me when a business owner has an epiphany about the importance of active marketing. They either don’t have any marketing, or there is no way of measuring the effectiveness of their current marketing. That’s where Louvre Media fits into your custom business puzzle.

All puzzles are different in the same way no two businesses are the same. Marketing needs to be customized, defined, designed, delivered, and cultivated. For small and medium sized businesses, the one-size-fits all model doesn’t work, and automation becomes a hindrance rather than a perk.

Go sit down with any marketing agency about your small business’s marketing needs and they will say, “Okay, we have three packages – Package A has this, Package B has the same thing but it’s better, and Package C is our premium package which actually has what you need and is wildly overpriced for that reason.” They probably won’t say the last part there, but most likely it’s true. If they do have a package that works for your business, it probably includes tools that you won’t even use. At Louvre Media, we offer the whole package.

The whole package is designed for you, knowing that your business is unique and has different needs when compared with any other business. Even franchises are different from each other, believe it or not. My favorite part about meeting a new potential client is that I know, no matter what their needs are, I can come up with a solution and a plan that works with their goals in mind. Have a small budget? I can work with that. Don’t know what marketing is, but know you need it? Great! I can get the ball rolling to help your business compete with the big guys. I’ve bought billboards, magazine ads, newspaper flyers, and done countless newsletters, social posts, and so much more. We always say, “if we don’t do it already, we’ll learn how for our clients.”

I’ve been with Louvre Media for more than a year now and I can’t wait to keep learning! Work is a place I love to be now. Every day brings new challenges and fun ways for me help businesses grow and build a foundation. I can easily recommend Louvre Media’s marketing to any business owner because I know that it works and that I have a great team to back me up. We’re the whole package!

The Right Message to the Right Customer

“How Do I Focus on Getting The Best Customers?”

As a business owner, this thought has most likely crossed your mind a time or two, regardless of how well things are going. One of the quickest ways for a business to waste money is not identifying who their target customer is when planning a marketing strategy. It would be imprudent to market a child’s toy to college students, just as it would not make sense to advertise a new cologne during Saturday morning cartoon shows.

Getting the Right Message to the Right Customer

In order to have a successful marketing venture it is imperative to know who your target customers are. Some key principles to help in identifying your best marketing group are:

Age

Gender

Demographics/Ethnicity

Status, including educational status, financial status, and family status.

Now, some people will certainly fit into many different groups, and each of these groups will use media differently. This also means that their responses will be different to the various messages in the advertisement.

“But isn’t this discrimination?”

No, it’s not. Let me explain by using an example of the Tesla automobile. If you were marketing the Tesla today, who would your target audience be, and what could change that? The original Tesla was priced over $100,000, which left you with a limited target audience. It also had a strong appeal to the younger executives, as opposed to an older audience. Therefore, you would be wise to choose to target media that focuses on this demographic. That said, this is all about to change! Tesla is releasing the new Model 3 this year, and with it is a price tag of $35,000, which will massively widen its base of potential customers. The car will be much more affordable, opening it to more of the middle-income buyers. Add to that the appeal of an electric range of 225 miles, and you’ve got another target market in the environmentally conscientious.

Just a little bit of market research can take you a long way in making sure that you target the right audience, which is critical. Having a great advertising campaign going to the wrong audience is illogical, and wasteful of time and money. By learning who your target customer is, you’ll be able to use it to your advantage and work better with your creative team to come up with great campaigns. Creative campaigns with the right message for the right customer in the right media, creating a win-win in your marketing, and increasing your sales.

How much of the marketing budget needs to go to branding?
(TV, Radio, Billboard, Newspaper, Magazines, Community activities, etc…)

How much of the marketing budget needs to go to promote your business to existing customers?
(Promotional items, communications via phone or email, etc…)

PLAN, IMPLEMENT, MEASURE, STAY CONSISTENT

Questions on how to measure your marketing? Give Louvre Media a call to have this conversation.

The secret isn’t always in the plan- but having a plan is the first place to start. The plan should include expected results for each media and have measurements in place to quantify the results. This may be tricky, especially if your business is a retail business, as marketing may increase sales but maybe not enough to measure. If you stay consistent with measuring your marketing, you will find trends within the data to help make better decisions going forward.

The portion of the marketing budget to market to existing customers should stay constant. As the business grows, the amount (by percentage) should remain the same. As business are expanding more of the marketing budget should go towards branding, especially once you have a good flow of new customers coming in from your directing marketing efforts.

As a business settles in on the right mix, new media should be tested, either using additional market dollars available from increased sales or from what is believed to be the lowest producing of your marketing choices, as there may be better marketing to continue to improve your ROI.

When you make the plan, implement it, measure it, and stay consistent with it, you will find yourself well on the way to improving your marketing and your marketing’s ROI, as well as your sales.